Janamdin ki badhai!

“Oh! it’s the most wonderful birthday any young girl can dream of.”
—Dolly, Disco Dancer

MemsaabStory turns one today, pretty boring for all except me I know; but perhaps made a little more fun by cake and hand-feeding à la “the greatest Disco movie ever made in India” (according to the back of the DVD cover). How I love the Indian penchant for qualifying grandiose statements!

Thanks to all of you who keep coming back to read, comment, make me laugh, and educate me! You have greatly enriched my movie-watching, and my life.

Posted on June 22, 2008 at 8:33 am in Everything else, Hindi movies | RSS feed You can skip to the end and leave a reply.

Tags: birthdays, blogging, Disco Dancer

24 Comments to “Janamdin ki badhai!”

Filmi Girl
June 22, 2008 at 10:19 am

Happy One Year Birthday!

Thank you for blogging. :D

It’s comforting to know that I’m not alone in my Bollywood obsession….

Reply
carla
June 22, 2008 at 10:55 am

mubarak ho! It happens to be “Sounds Like Power”‘s first birthday as well; two great minds simultaneously inspired! :D

Reply
memsaab
June 22, 2008 at 10:57 am

Carla, I am honored to share a mind such as yours my dear, and janamdin ki badhai to you too!

And thanks, Filmi Girl!

Reply
Anarchivist
June 22, 2008 at 12:37 pm

The only way it could be better is if Mithun went on a world tour of all your readers and fed us cake. Congrats!

Reply
Ramsu
June 22, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Happy Anniversary, Memsaab! I hope we will see many more years of wonderful blogging from you.

~r

Reply
theBollywoodFan
June 22, 2008 at 2:28 pm

Happy birthday Memsaab!

And in reference to this comment: ‘You have greatly enriched my movie-watching, and my life.’

The feeling is absolutely mutual. As Filmi Girl said, thank *you* for blogging!

Best wishes.

Reply
ajnabi
June 22, 2008 at 3:24 pm

Happy birthday, Memsaab! Now, who should do the standard terrible Bollywood rendition of the “Happy Birthday” song for you? I think the worst was Rani in K3G but there might be others that take *that* cake. ;-)

Reply
mere blog englishstani... phir bhi dil hai PPCC
June 22, 2008 at 3:41 pm

Whee! Mubarak ho! Thanks for writing incredibly fun and informative reviews – and being a great watchalong partner, too!

Reply
memsaab
June 22, 2008 at 3:53 pm

Thank you all so much! I am beginning to feel like it’s a birthday and Christmas all rolled into one :-)

I love Indian filmi birthday parties beyond words. I love the uncoordinated clapping, the pronunciation of “birtDay”, the enthusiasm and warmth with which everyone greets the birthday boy/girl, and the inevitable plot complications which unfold.

I chose DD for this post b/c I think it may be my favorite one, what with all the angst and hand-feeding and all. Plus Dolly freaks out on evil Mr. Oberoi and throws a drink in his face. And Mithun gets to give his revenge speech! And the cake is pretty special too.

Now I will need to take another look at the Rani K3G one :-) Any other favorites out there???

Reply
bollyviewer
June 22, 2008 at 5:48 pm

A Very Happy burtday to you memsaab. Keep up the good work and keep us (all your readers) supplied with more of your super Bolly- reviews and trivia!

Reply
Rum
June 22, 2008 at 9:11 pm

HAPPPY Birthday memsaab! your knowledge is far greater than i can be as a 17 year old trivia buff! You rock!

Reply
Filmi Girl
June 22, 2008 at 10:58 pm

I love Baby Farida’s filmi birthday in “Ram aur Shyam” where Pran tries to get them to cut the noise and then Dilip Kumar shoves cake (that had fallen on the floor) into Pran’s mouth!

Dilip takes birthdays very seriously….

Reply
madhu
June 23, 2008 at 12:14 am

Memsaab, I discovered your site just a couple of weeks ago, and it’s really the only blog I’ve ever found myself returning to, again and again. So here’s a heartfelt (or, as Sanjeev Kumar would say in Manchali, may be even felt from the lungs!) thank you. Congratulations, and jeete raho!

Reply
Banno
June 23, 2008 at 2:35 am

Oh, a very very happy birthday. And like we say in India, and specially in Indian films, “Tum jeeo hazaaron saal, saal ke din ho pachaas hazaar” – May you live a thousand years, and may each year have five thousand days.

Do you know that song?

Reply
bawa
June 23, 2008 at 7:15 am

Happy Birthday!
Thanks for making our lives “happier” by digging up and all that writing about all these films…
An anecdote: I had an an aunt who was born and brought up abroad but eventually got married in India. After some years she confessed that she had been innocently expecting someone to burst into a song at her first dinner parties, as that was happened in all Hindi movies! (all that piano playing in the 60’s)

Reply
memsaab
June 23, 2008 at 8:30 am

Awww, you are all so nice. What a great way to begin the day, reading all these comments.

Bollyviewer and Rum: thanks from the bottom of my heart!

Filmi Girl, I will check that scene out again in Ram Aur Shyam, I don’t remember it but sounds hilarious (and if Pran is there, I am there)…

Madhu: please keep coming back, and I love the Manchali quote :-)

Banno: thank you for the sentiment and for teaching me a great phrase in Hindi :-) I don’t know that I WANT to live that long but that’s another story!

Bawa: that is hysterical. Rajendra Kumar should be a staple at dinner parties (for some reason, he’s the one I connect most with piano playing and singing)…

Reply
DG
June 23, 2008 at 11:10 am

I’m late, but Happy Birthday Memsaab – your blog is such a great pleasure to read, thanks so much for sharing it with us.

Re filmi ‘birtDays’: Karisma’s ‘Happy birthday’ rendition in ‘Raja Hindustani’ is really terrible – even worse than Rani’s in K3G, I think. And therefore very amusing. And I rather liked Shilpa Shetty’s birthday party in ‘Baazigar’, mostly because they danced to ‘It’s My Life’, by Nigerian-born rapper Dr. Alban, and that was the very last song I was expecting to hear while watching a hindi film. I also loved Shilpa’s colourful outfit and bouncy dance-moves. Of course it all turned very sinister when SRK turned up, peering oddly through the window… but… no morbid thoughts on such a happy occasion… it’s time for a toast, and I’d like to lift my imaginary wineglass to…

… much more on “Hindi movies and other stuff you love about India (plus occasional random nonsense)”.

Reply
memsaab
June 23, 2008 at 11:15 am

Oooh good filmi birthdays, DG! and thank you :-) May we have many more happy Dharmendra moments too!

Reply
Ranya
June 23, 2008 at 12:23 pm

Memsaab, Shuvo Jonmodin!! (“Happy Birthday” — In Bangla!!) :-)

Reply
Shweta
June 23, 2008 at 3:13 pm

Happy Birthday to the blog! and congratulations on a year of wonderfully entertaining writing Greta :)

Reply
memsaab
June 23, 2008 at 4:14 pm

Ranya, thanks for teaching me a new way to say HB! and thank you too Shweta :-) It wouldn’t be the same if you guy didn’t read it.

Reply
sitaji
June 24, 2008 at 1:57 am

Happy Birthday! And many more!

Reply
Amit
June 26, 2008 at 1:39 pm

Happy birDay to your blog!! Your style of writing is never boring. :)

Reply
memsaab
June 26, 2008 at 2:46 pm

Ha ha! It doesn’t really have any style either! but thank you, and thanks Sitaji!

Reply